Pack of Shadows
by PeaceofStar
Summary: Fox is a Cat, a specially trained spy and assassin of Southern Command. Can she and her ragtag bunch of Wolves strike a terrifying blow to the vampiric Kurian Order? Based on the “Vampire Earth” series by E.E. Knight.
1. Intro

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. Mr. Knight is just kind enough to let me play in his world. **

o:o:o

2022: The reign of man has ended. Natural disasters on an unprecedented scale rock the world. Add to this devastation the maddening Ravies virus, a global plague that wiped out billions in only a few days and left only a shell of an already-teetering world structure.

Into this hell came the Reapers. Heavily hooded and cloaked figures that seized control without mercy, killing all those who would oppose the new order. In other places Grog armies marched into the cities, quickly crushing any and all resistance.

Last to fall were the nuclear strikes, only to be employed as a last resort, reducing the major cities of the United States to nothing more than a shambles. Washington burned, the Vice President fled, and the President himself committed suicide when his family succumbed to Ravies.

The world has been thrown back into the Dark Ages. Kurian Lords use their Reapers to feed on the lives of the humans under their control. They resemble the great Medici and Borgia families of Italy in that they are always squabbling and traitorous. Nothing is sacred to them.

Technology has degraded to a nineteenth century levels. Though there are radios, phones, and vehicles, they are rare reasons to stop and stare. It is as common to see a horseman galloping along the road as a courier, as it once was to see a car driving down the same stretch of highway.

Most of humanity is depressed and miserable. Some have sold themselves out to their new Lords in exchange for protection, but that is a fleeting thing. Other peoples still oppose them. In the Ozark Free Territory, they are called the Hunters.

A specially-created group of people, the Hunters are divided into three castes, the Wolves, the Cats, and the Bears. Working from Southern Command, high in the Ozark Plateau, it is their duty to protect the Free Territory and oppose Kurian rule with all that they are.

o:o:o

_The Smokey Mountains Strongholds, October of the forty-first year of the Kurian Order: Miles and miles of unbroken timber stretch out in all directions, covering the remains of the few homesteads now being reclaimed by the wilderness. Only wildlife trails cross these mountains, separating the coast from the rest of the continent. Land once belonging to the poorest Appalachian peoples now belongs to the animals that roam the hills._

_Small glades still bear the evidence of farming attempts. A few pockets of tall corn or piles of vegetables ready for the fall harvest wait patiently for no one's return. But mostly, it's no-mans-land. Life in the mountains is too difficult for most, and they've moved off to be collected into some Quisling's labor camp. Rusted pickup trucks and abandoned two-room houses are decrepit and overgrown with plants. Nature is slowly recovering what was once hers._

_A small figure wends her way through the trees and overgrowth as though she was a deer. Moving quickly, she darts through the trees and rocks, scaling the mountain at unnatural speed.. Despite her speed, she moves with supple grace gained from years of traveling long distances on foot. A herd of deer don't even notice her and scatter only after she's past. She blends so well into her surroundings, it's hard to see her. Dark haired with light copper skin, she looks like an ancestor on the Apache side of her father's ancestry, except for her icy-blue eyes which are constantly moving and wary._

o:o:o


	2. Breathe

o:o:o

Her limbs burned, and her lungs felt as though they would explode. She didn't know how long she'd been running. Silent as a wraith she moved quickly through the heavily forested landscape, pausing every so often to listen. Behind her she could still hear the very distant baying of hounds. _Damn it!_ she cursed to herself. _They were still tracking her._

As she ran she continued to berate herself. _Imagine it: the wily Fox, figured out and forced to flee before she finished the job, and now running away from her trackers._ She laughed. The idea was absurd, but here she was anyway.

Cresting a ridge, she caught the first glimpses of sunrise peeking over the horizon. _Good_, she thought, _the Reapers will have to go to ground and then she can put some serious distance between them_. It meant another day of moving with no food or sleep, but it would all be worth it come nightfall.

She continued running until the sunlight was an hour old. Behind her, the baying of the dogs faded away to be replaced by the normal sounds of wildlife moving through the forest. Finding a clear mountain spring that trickled down from higher elevations, she paused long enough for a short rest and to take inventory of herself and her supplies.

It had been three days since she'd been flushed from her hiding place on the outskirts of the city once called Richmond. She'd known the mission would be dangerous when she undertook it nearly a year earlier, but she hadn't expected to be ambushed by seven Reapers in broad daylight. Judging by the amount of knowledge they had about her whereabouts, it became painfully obvious that one of her so-called friends had tipped off the Kurian – probably in exchange for a brass ring.

Hardly good odds even for someone like her, she ran. She probably could have taken them, but then her cover would be blown and the Kurian would come after her in force. As it was, she'd been running from their trackers for three days through the sparsely inhabited Smokey Mountains.

Having left Richmond in a hurry, she'd been forced to think more about survival that grabbing every little thing she would have liked to have. Now she found herself with only her .357 handgun and about seventy-five rounds, an antique Kukri knife with it's still-sharp nineteen inch long curved blade, and her claws, of course.

"Well, Kali," she asked herself, splashing across a thin stream, "what have you gotten yourself into this time?"

If she could make it back to the Ozark Free Territory and Southern Command, she'd be alright. But to do that she'd be moving through Kurian territory until she was across the Mississippi River, at least three more days away. That was if she continued at the same pace. With no food or rest, she knew she'd have to slow down sometime. If the Grogs had chased her this far, she was certain they wouldn't give up until they caught her, and it was only a matter of time before she was forced to stand and fight. They were probably waiting to attack until the Reapers congregated.

After another drink from the stream and a short, half-hour rest, she was up and moving again, always heading southwest across the mountains. With any luck, she could get a pretty good head start and maybe hole up somewhere for the night.

o:o:o


	3. Pups

o:o:o

"Hang on," whispered a voice so low and quiet it was little more than a breeze. "There's something up there."

Three men emerged from the shadows of the trees. Dressed in darkened buckskin that made them resemble the Native Americans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they carried light, military-grade rifles, but to call them men would be a stretch. Despite their military weaponry and attire, not one of them could have been over the age of eighteen.

Cautiously, they circled quietly through the murky underbrush that grew in a thick strip along the banks of the river. Their target, hardly visible even in the moonlight, was nothing more than a strange shape bobbing in a small eddy some one hundred yards away. It didn't move as they approached, but they kept their semi-automatic carbines pointed at it nonetheless.

While two provided cover, the leader slowly approached the figure and carefully poked it with the toe of his steel-toed boot. When it still didn't move, he bent down to investigate it closer still.

He had to bite his tongue to stifle his curse. It was the body of what appeared to be a young woman. Cloaked from head to toe in a dark olive green duster, she looked to be in her early twenties, but it was hard to tell underneath all the grime.

A short whistle summoned one of the two guards, and they hauled her out of the water. Even completely waterlogged as she was, she barely weight a hundred pounds.

"She's still alive," he muttered, feeling a weak and thready pulse at her neck. Without any light, he carefully felt her over for injuries. There was a big gash in her head near her hair line, and several long claw marks down her back had torn the coat to shreds. Her sturdy combat boot was clearly holding together a broken ankle by how tight it was.

His buddy whistled appreciatively as he came across the curved blade of the Kukri knife. "Armed to the teeth this one is," he muttered, laying a knife in a pile with her handgun.

"More like to the claws," corrected the leader of the group, rifling through her pockets for an id and coming across her claws, the glove-like constructs that ended in menacing talons instead of fingers. He stopped and his eyes suddenly widened. "I think we've got us a Cat."

"I heard they're damned near impossible to kill, what with those nine lives. Obviously this one don't like water much," the second man joked. "Wonder what she was doing in the river in the first place?"

After a short discussion, it was agreed that they should try to revive her first before deciding what to do with her. Laying aside his rifle, the young man struggled to remember everything they'd told him about life-saving techniques. After several anxious minutes of CPR, the girl lurched suddenly, coughing up brackish water, and gasping for breath.

o:o:o

It was dark and wet, and all she knew was the sharp throbbing in her head and fire in her ankle. Worse by far, she felt like she had the mother-of-all-hangovers. There were three dark figures around her holding what looked like semiautomatic rifles. She reached for her trusty knife, always hanging at her hip, but it wasn't there.

"Looking for these?" asked one of them, holding up her handgun, knife, and claws.

She scowled, but it made her head throb especially painfully, and she winced.

Before she could respond, one of them crouched down near to her. "We're with Gamma Squadron, Arkansas Wolves. Consider yourself our prisoner," he announced. "Mind telling us who you are?"

_Of all the rotten luck. Wolf pups._ "Code name's Fox," she recited automatically. "Verification number: nine-oh-three."

"Want to tell us where you came from, _Fox_?" asked the one with her weapons, "And maybe explain why we shouldn't dispense with Wolf justice right now."

She shrugged. "That's up to you. You've got my claws, my name and number. If I am who I say I am, do you want to take the chance? Or if I'm a very good spy, don't you want your commanders to know about me and see what kind of information you can get?"

Another short whistle brought the third team member over. Circling around, the Wolves discussed her fate in low tones they apparently didn't think she could hear.

_Do you think she's telling the truth? – It would be nice to bring a spy back to camp. – Commander would have our hides. – But what about those claws? – She's got the name and number. – She could have killed a Cat. – Do we want to chance it? – I say we kill her. Heck she's practically dead anyway. – We should take her back. – It's not the Wolf way. We kill them here and now. – Those are Quislings. We've got no proof she's one of them. – We've got not proof she's not._

Rolling her eyes, she sighed dramatically, hoping to remind them she was still there. "How about you take me to your camp, and if they decide I'm a spy, you can shoot me then? If I am, I still won't be able to tell anyone of anything I see," she suggested.

After some debate, the young Wolves finally decided to take her back to camp with them. "Don't get too comfortable. If the commander thinks you're a spy, you're still dead," one of them explained cheerfully as they handcuffed her.

She scowled, but leaned dutifully on one of their shoulders and hobbled along, silently cursing the fates that left her to be found by pups of all things.

o:o:o


End file.
